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China Village Documentary Project
A Proposal for Phase II - 2007

A Development & Exchange Program
Engaging Young Southeast Asian Artists and Filmmakers

Organization: Caochangdi Workstation Art Centre, Beijing
Curator/organizer: Wu Wenguang

A Brief History the Project -

The Year 2005 saw the beginning of the ground-breaking China Village Documentary Project, which, for the first time in China, opens a visual channel from the villages by putting video and still cameras in the hands of villagers across the nation. This project represents a new direction for documentary-making in China. In its first phase, the selected topic for documentation was village self-governance:

Village self-governance is China’s important step forward towards decentralization and democratization. It has changed the dynamics and public lives of China’s rural communities, with an estimated total population of some 900 million people. This process, however, is rarely documented for various reasons. Even less so are the changes been viewed by the villagers themselves. This unprecedented project tries to address this need and has, for the very first time in the nation, successfully opened a new visual channel from the villages. It aims at empowering ordinary villagers through documentation through cameras, and seeing the changing realities from the perspective of the people whose lives are dependent on the villages, for better or worse. Instead of making any openly political statements, the films and photos of this project document the daily realities rural people face in China’s new village governance mechanism.

The project consists of two parts: villagers’ documentary films (10 selected villagers) and villagers’ documentary photos (100 selected villagers). The ten successful candidates were chosen from villagers from across the nation who answered a call for proposals and each of them was awarded a video camera, a tripod and ten blank video tapes. The villagers themselves then filmed scenes at home (in nine different provinces), crafting short projects that observed the politics of village life under post-Maoist reforms. The 100 villager photographers were chosen both from among applicants and through snowball sampling in 18 different provinces. The number of the photos returned to the project totals 6,000.
As of end of 2006, the ten villagers’ documentary films and Seen and Heard (a documentary on the project itself) have toured four American universities (New York University, Yale, Columbia and Notre Dame), four British universities (Cambridge, Leeds, Oxford, Cardiff) and have been shown in Beijing on various occasions, in Hong Kong International Film Festival and in Visions du Reel, a film festival in Nyon, Switzerland. A selection of the best photos taken by the villagers was also shown in the US tour and in Beijing. The films/photographs were screened/exhibited at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, VIENNALE, Vienna International Film Festival, International Conference on Visual Anthropology, Guangdong, China, IDFA, international documentary film festival, Amsterdam.

Description of the Project in Phase II and Its Objectives -

The project aims at empowering ordinary villagers through documentation through cameras, and seeing the changing realities from the perspective of the people whose lives are dependent on the villages, for better or worse. Instead of making any openly political statements, the films and photos of this project document the daily realities rural people face in China’s new village governance mechanism.

Based on the success in Phase I, China Village Documentary Project in its Phase II in 2007 will further empower villager filmmakers and photographers from Phase I by giving them more support in the production and distribution of new works; the filmmakers and photographers should be able to complete their new works by the end of Phase II. In Phase II, the project will also select and train a new team of villager filmmakers and photographers and edit a book collecting journals
written by villager filmmakers and photographers.

Phase II consists of activities in three sub-projects:
Subproject A: Production of new documentary films by a selected number of villager filmmakers from Phase I.

Subproject B: Production of new documentary films by a selected number of villager filmmakers and photographers from Phase I.

Subproject C: Selecting and training a new team of villager filmmakers and photographers and edit a book collecting journals written by villager filmmakers and photographers.

This application seeks ANA support for the project’s activities in Subproject A.

The project is adding a new dimension to its Phase II by engaging young visual artists and filmmakers from Southeast Asian countries in its activities. The objective is to share experience with artists from outside the country in the hope of inspiring similar efforts in Southeast Asia. The project shall also seek inspirations from the interaction between the villager filmmakers it supports and the Southeast Asian artists it engages.

The young Southeast Asian filmmakers and artists invited to the project (hereafter “the visiting Southeast Asian artists”) shall participate in both the production and the postproduction training workshops offered to the villager filmmakers at Caochangdi Workstation in Beijing and in the field. While contributing to the project with their professional and personal experience, the visiting Southeast Asian artists shall also benefit from the interaction with the organizer and the villager filmmakers.

Selection of the Southeast Asian artists:

The project shall invite four Southeast Asian artists and filmmakers to join its activities in Subproject A of 2007. The project proposes that the candidates come from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, India or other nations in the Mekong Sub-region and Southeast Asia. The project shall begin a selection process of the Asian artists after consulting peer panel members of ANA for advice. †It shall select from a combination of nominated individuals as well as possibly open calls in different Southeast Asian countries, depending on the most effective process in the different contexts. The selection shall be based on the candidates’ qualifications, motivations together with the objectives of the project.

The project thus believes that these exchanges and interactions in China shall better prepare the Southeast Asian filmmakers for the inception and development of their own projects at home.

Implementation of Project’s Subproject A -

In Subproject A of the project’s Phase II, villager filmmakers from Phase I who have started shooting for a new documentary film will receive more support from the project. The filmmaker will select a new topic to make a documentary film about. He or she will receive ten more blank video tapes as well as on-the-spot production workshops and tutoring from specialists. They will also be invited to Beijing to participate in training workshops on postproduction editing. Apart from editing their own films, the filmmakers will be engaged in workshops and discussions on their selected topics. Public screening will be organized for the newly completed films at the end of the workshop.

The visiting Southeast Asian artists shall participate in all stages of the subproject.

A first ten-day postproduction training workshop will be organized in Beijing between May 1 and 10 for selected villager filmmakers who have completed a substantial amount of footage in the past year. The workshop aims at passing on to the villagers the basic concepts and skills of non-linear audio-visual editing. The projects hopes that by the end of the workshop, the villager filmmakers shall be able to conduct postproduction editing with minimum assistance from others.

The visiting Southeast Asian artists shall be able to observe how computer and editing skills are instructed to people with little or none technical know-how. For visiting artists who are interested in starting similar projects in their home country, the proposed activity shall give them an opportunity to identify potential challenges and difficulties and find solutions through interactions with the organizer and the villager filmmakers during the workshop.

A first ten-day production training workship will be organized in the field towards the end of March for selected villager filmmakers who are shooting new footage for a new documentary. The project will send a professional filmmaker and an assistant to tutor the fillmmakers in their home village.

The visiting Southeast Asian artists shall be able to observe how to organize tutoring in the complex situations in the field and how to respond to issues rising on the spot.

A twenty-day production workshop will be organized in the field in July for selected villager filmmakers who are in the process of shooting new footage for a new documentary.

A twenty-day postproduction workshop will be organized at Caochangdi Workstation in Beijing in August for selected villager filmmakers who have completed shooting. During this workshop, the villager filmmakers are expected to complete the editing of their new documentary films.

Expected Outputs and Their Impact –

The output of the project shall come out in the following forms:
Inspired efforts in the home countries of the visiting artists to empower villagers and/or ordinary citizens with filmmaking.
Public screenings (both in China and in the home countries of the visiting artists) of the new documentary films produced by the villager filmmakers, supervised jointly by the organizer and the visiting Asian filmmakers and artists
Public screenings (both in China and in the home countries of the visiting artists) of the documentary film on the project itself
Public screening in interantional film festivals, art festivals, exhibitions, seminars, etc.

The target audience for the proposed project are general public in China and artists, filmmakers and villagers in the home countries of the visiting Asian artists.

Since the devising stage of the project’s basic structure, the organizer of the project emphasizes the importance of inter-action, which implies that the activities shall be highly participatory for both the villager filmmakers and the visiting Southeast Asian aritists. The organizer shall engage the visiting artists right from the beginning of the designing each workshop, i.e., before the workshop the visiting aritists shall decide the agenda and priorities together with the organizer. During the workshop, while observing the practices on the spot, the visiting artists shall have significant contribution to the project by discussing and working together with the villager filmmakers. As the artists bring with them different cultural background, personal experience and varied expectations, their input shall have a great impact on the direction and the dynamics of the workshop.

The project is NOT about passing on knowledge to the visiting Southeast Asian artists, but rather it is a process of putting them on the spot, inviting new thinking, stimulating inspirations, testing ideas, identifying and overcoming stereotypes, opening up new possibilities, and strengthening confidence. The greater impact of this process might be more obvious when the visiting artists go back to their own culture settings, in which their future work will be laid. How to empower ordinary community people with arts has become a universal endeavor. By engaging the visiting Southeast Asian artists, the China Village Documentary Project hopes to create a forum for Sountheast Asian artists endeavoring to promote community art within their country of origin. Through the direct interactions it creates, the project will break a new ground on which new ideas will be inspired, tested and shared among young Asian artists and Chinese villager filmmakers.

Throughout the project’s life time and beyond, the organizer will ensure exposure and coverage in the press and on the Internet. In addition to publicity in China, the project also expects the visiting Asian filmmakers and artists to take back to their home country the output of the project (a copy of the documentary films produced as well as the documentary on the project itself) so they can share the output with people, especially villagers, at home.

The Timeframe